1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.8
6 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
7 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
9 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
10 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
11 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
13 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
14 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
16 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
17 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
19 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
20 list of section offsets.
22 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
24 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
25 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
31 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
36 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
38 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
40 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
41 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
42 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
44 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
46 * New native configurations
48 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
49 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
53 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
54 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
56 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
58 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
59 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
60 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
61 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
63 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
64 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
66 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
69 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
70 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
71 and in inlined functions.
73 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
74 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
75 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
77 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
79 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
80 registers on PowerPC targets.
82 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
83 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
85 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
86 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
88 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
91 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
92 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
93 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
94 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
96 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
97 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
100 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
101 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
102 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
103 stored in two consecutive float registers.
105 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
108 * Improved support for debugging Ada
109 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
111 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
112 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
113 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
114 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
116 - Improved command completion in Ada
121 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
122 show print frame-arguments
123 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
124 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
129 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
136 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
145 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
147 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
151 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
155 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
157 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
159 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
160 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
161 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
163 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
164 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
165 -Bsymbolic linker option.
167 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
168 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
171 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
172 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
174 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
175 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
177 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
179 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
180 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
181 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
183 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
184 automatically displayed as character or string data.
186 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
187 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
190 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
191 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
192 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
194 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
197 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
198 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
199 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
201 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
203 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
205 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
206 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
207 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
209 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
210 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
212 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
213 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
214 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
215 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
216 Windows and SymbianOS).
218 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
219 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
221 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
222 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
228 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
229 when debugging using remote targets.
231 set mem inaccessible-by-default
232 show mem inaccessible-by-default
233 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
234 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
235 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
236 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
237 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
239 set breakpoint auto-hw
240 show breakpoint auto-hw
241 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
242 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
243 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
244 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
245 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
246 including "next" and "finish".
249 catch exception unhandled
250 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
253 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
257 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
258 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
259 an alias to "set sysroot".
262 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
263 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
266 * New native configurations
268 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
273 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
274 not query the target for its built-in description.
278 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
279 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
280 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
285 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
286 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
289 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
294 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
295 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
297 qXfer:libraries:read:
298 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
299 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
300 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
301 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
305 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
314 i[34567]86-*-netware*
315 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
316 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
318 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
321 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
322 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
331 * Other removed features
338 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
345 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
350 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
351 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
356 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
357 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
359 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
361 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
362 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
363 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
364 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
368 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
369 in debugging information.
373 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
374 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
376 set mips stack-arg-size
377 set mips saved-gpreg-size
379 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
381 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
386 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
388 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
389 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
390 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
392 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
393 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
396 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
397 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
399 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
400 stub provides the required support.
402 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
403 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
408 unset substitute-path
410 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
411 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
412 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
413 between compilation and debugging.
417 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
418 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
419 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
423 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
425 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
426 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
428 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
433 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
434 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
435 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
436 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
440 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
441 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
443 qXfer:memory-map:read:
444 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
445 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
450 Erase and program a flash memory device.
452 * Removed remote packets
455 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
456 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
458 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
462 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
464 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
468 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
469 only if it doesn't already have a value.
471 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
473 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
475 restart <n> Return the program state to a
476 previously saved state.
478 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
480 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
482 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
483 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
485 info forks List forks of the user program that
486 are available to be debugged.
488 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
489 forks of the user program that are
490 available to be debugged.
492 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
493 that are available to be debugged (and
494 kill the forked process).
496 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
497 that are available to be debugged (and
498 allow the process to continue).
502 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
504 * Improved Windows host support
506 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
507 native console support, and remote communications using either
508 network sockets or serial ports.
510 * Improved Modula-2 language support
512 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
513 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
514 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
515 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
516 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
517 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
521 The ARM rdi-share module.
523 The Netware NLM debug server.
525 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
527 * New native configurations
529 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
530 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
534 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
536 * New command line options
538 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
539 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
540 the child (debugged) program exited with.
541 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
542 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
543 specified multiple times and in conjunction
544 with the --command (-x) option.
546 * Deprecated commands removed
548 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
552 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
553 othernames set arm disassembler
554 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
555 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
556 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
559 * New BSD user-level threads support
561 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
562 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
565 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
566 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
567 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
569 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
570 are not yet supported.
572 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
573 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
575 * REMOVED configurations and files
577 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
578 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
579 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
581 * New "set print array-indexes" command
583 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
584 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
587 * VAX floating point support
589 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
591 * User-defined command support
593 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
594 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
595 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
597 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
599 * New command line option
601 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
604 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
606 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
607 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
608 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
609 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
610 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
612 * Internationalization
614 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
615 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
616 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
620 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
621 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
622 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
624 * New native configurations
626 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
630 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
631 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
633 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
635 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
636 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
637 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
640 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
641 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
642 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
654 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
655 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
657 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
659 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
660 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
661 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
671 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
673 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
675 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
676 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
679 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
681 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
682 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
683 IRIX long double values).
687 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
688 command. This problem has been fixed.
690 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
692 * Fix for ``many threads''
694 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
695 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
698 ptrace: No such process.
699 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
701 This problem has been fixed.
703 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
705 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
708 * New ``start'' command.
710 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
712 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
714 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
715 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
716 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
718 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
719 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
720 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
721 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
722 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
723 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
724 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
725 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
726 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
728 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
730 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
731 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
732 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
733 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
734 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
736 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
737 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
738 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
740 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
742 * New native configurations
744 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
745 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
746 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
747 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
748 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
749 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
750 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
752 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
754 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
755 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
756 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
757 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
758 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
759 work, was also included.
761 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
762 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
772 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
773 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
775 * REMOVED configurations and files
777 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
778 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
779 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
780 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
781 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
782 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
783 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
784 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
785 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
787 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
789 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
791 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
793 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
794 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
795 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
796 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
799 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
801 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
802 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
803 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
804 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
805 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
806 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
809 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
811 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
813 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
814 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
815 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
817 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
819 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
820 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
822 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
824 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
825 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
826 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
828 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
830 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
831 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
833 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
835 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
836 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
837 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
839 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
841 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
842 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
843 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
845 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
847 * Removed --with-mmalloc
849 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
850 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
852 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
854 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
855 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
856 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
857 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
859 * Revised SPARC target
861 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
862 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
863 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
864 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
865 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
869 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
870 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
871 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
874 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
876 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
877 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
880 * C++ nested types and namespaces
882 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
883 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
884 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
885 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
886 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
887 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
888 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
889 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
890 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
892 * New native configurations
894 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
895 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
896 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
897 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
898 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
900 * New debugging protocols
902 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
904 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
906 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
907 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
908 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
910 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
912 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
913 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
914 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
917 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
918 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
919 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
920 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
921 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
922 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
923 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
924 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
925 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
927 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
929 * REMOVED configurations and files
931 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
932 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
933 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
934 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
935 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
936 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
937 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
938 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
939 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
940 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
941 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
942 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
943 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
944 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
945 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
946 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
947 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
949 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
953 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
956 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
958 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
959 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
960 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
963 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
964 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
969 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
970 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
971 remote protocol documentation for details.
973 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
975 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
976 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
977 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
980 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
982 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
983 per-thread variables.
985 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
987 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
988 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
990 * Separate debug info.
992 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
993 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
994 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
995 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
996 and optional debug files.
998 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1000 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1001 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1004 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1005 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1009 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1010 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1011 considered "useable".
1013 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1015 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1016 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1019 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1021 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1022 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1024 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1026 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1027 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1030 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1032 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1033 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1037 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1038 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1039 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1040 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1041 data, for more informative profiling results.
1043 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1045 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1046 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1047 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1049 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1052 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1053 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1054 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1055 in a subsequent -var-update.
1057 * New native configurations.
1059 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1061 * Multi-arched targets.
1063 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1064 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1066 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1068 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1069 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1070 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1071 permanently REMOVED.
1073 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1074 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1075 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1076 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1077 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1078 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1079 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1080 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1081 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1082 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1083 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1084 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1086 * REMOVED configurations and files
1089 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1090 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1091 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1092 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1093 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1094 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1096 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1097 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1098 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1099 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1100 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1101 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1103 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1105 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1106 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1107 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1108 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1109 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1111 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1113 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1115 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1116 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1117 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1118 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1119 shared libs like mad''.
1121 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1123 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1124 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1125 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1126 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1128 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1130 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1131 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1134 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1135 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1137 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1138 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1140 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1141 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1142 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1143 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1145 * Multi-arched targets.
1147 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1148 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1150 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1151 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1152 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1156 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1159 * New native configurations
1161 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1162 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1163 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1164 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1166 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1168 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1169 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1170 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1171 permanently REMOVED.
1173 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1174 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1175 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1176 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1177 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1178 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1179 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1180 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1181 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1182 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1184 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1185 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1187 * OBSOLETE languages
1189 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1191 * REMOVED configurations and files
1193 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1194 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1195 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1196 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1197 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1199 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1201 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1203 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1204 commands. The default is 1024.
1206 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1208 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1210 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1212 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1213 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1214 from a file into memory (restore).
1216 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1218 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1219 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1220 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1222 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1230 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1231 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1232 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1234 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1235 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1236 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1238 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1239 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1240 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1242 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1243 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1244 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1246 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1248 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1250 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1251 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1252 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1253 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1254 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1255 (notably embedded) targets.
1257 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1259 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1260 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1261 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1262 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1264 * New command line option
1266 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1268 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1270 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1271 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1272 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1273 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1274 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1275 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1276 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1277 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1278 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1279 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1281 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1283 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1284 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1286 * New native configurations
1288 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1289 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1290 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1291 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1295 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1297 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1299 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1300 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1301 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1302 permanently REMOVED.
1304 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1305 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1306 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1307 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1308 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1310 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1312 * REMOVED configurations and files
1314 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1316 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1317 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1318 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1319 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1320 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1321 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1322 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1323 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1324 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1325 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1326 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1328 * Changes to command line processing
1330 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1331 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1333 * Changes to key bindings
1335 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1337 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1339 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1341 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1344 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1346 Numerous documentation fixes.
1348 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1350 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1352 * New native configurations
1354 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1355 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1356 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1357 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1358 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1359 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1363 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1365 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1367 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1369 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1370 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1371 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1372 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1373 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1375 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1376 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1377 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1378 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1379 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1380 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1381 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1382 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1384 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1385 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1387 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1388 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1389 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1390 permanently REMOVED.
1392 * REMOVED configurations and files
1394 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1395 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1397 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1401 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1403 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1404 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1409 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1411 * The MI enabled by default.
1413 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1414 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1415 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1416 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1417 which is now deprecated.
1419 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1421 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1422 main features are supported:
1424 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1426 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1429 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1431 - a Pascal expression parser.
1433 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1435 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1437 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1439 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1440 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1442 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1444 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1446 * Changes in completion.
1448 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1449 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1450 users expect at the shell prompt.
1452 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1453 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1454 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1455 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1456 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1457 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1458 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1460 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1462 * New platform-independent commands:
1464 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1465 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1466 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1468 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1470 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1471 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1472 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1474 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1476 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1477 multi-threaded programs though.
1479 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1481 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1483 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1484 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1487 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1489 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1490 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1491 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1492 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1493 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1496 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1497 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1498 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1500 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1502 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1503 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1505 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1506 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1509 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1510 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1511 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1512 a given linear address.
1514 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1515 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1516 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1518 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1520 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1522 * Changes in documentation.
1524 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1525 Documentation License.
1527 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1530 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1532 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1535 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1536 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1537 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1539 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1541 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1542 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1543 contents of this file.
1547 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1549 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1551 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1553 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1554 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1555 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1556 greater level of detail.
1558 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1560 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1561 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1562 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1565 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1567 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1568 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1569 machines ``out of the box''.
1571 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1572 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1573 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1574 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1575 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1577 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1578 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1579 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1580 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1581 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1583 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1584 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1587 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1590 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1591 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1592 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1593 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1595 * New native configurations
1597 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1598 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1602 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1603 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1604 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1605 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1607 * OBSOLETE configurations
1609 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1610 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1612 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1615 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1616 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1617 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1618 be permanently REMOVED.
1620 * Gould support removed
1622 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1624 * New features for SVR4
1626 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1627 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1628 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1630 * Many C++ enhancements
1632 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1633 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1635 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1637 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1638 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1639 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1640 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1642 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1643 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1645 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1647 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1648 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1649 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1651 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1652 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1654 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1656 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1657 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1658 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1660 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1662 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1663 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1664 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1666 * ``apropos'' command added.
1668 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1669 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1670 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1674 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1675 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1676 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1677 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1678 enabled by configuring with:
1680 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1682 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1684 * New native configurations
1686 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1687 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1688 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1692 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1693 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1694 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1696 * OBSOLETE configurations
1698 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1700 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1701 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1702 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1703 be permanently REMOVED.
1707 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1708 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1709 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1710 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1711 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1712 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1713 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1718 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1720 * set extension-language
1722 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1723 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1724 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1725 set extension-language .c c++
1726 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1727 and their associated languages.
1729 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1731 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1732 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1733 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1737 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1738 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1740 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1741 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1743 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1744 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1745 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1746 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1747 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1748 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1749 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1750 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1752 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1753 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1754 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1755 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1759 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1760 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1761 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1762 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1763 for xdb and dbx commands.
1767 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1768 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1769 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1771 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1772 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1773 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1775 * Debugging across forks
1777 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1782 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1783 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1784 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1786 * GDB remote protocol additions
1788 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1789 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1790 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1791 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1793 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1794 full 64-bit address. The command
1796 set remoteaddresssize 32
1798 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1799 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1802 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1803 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1805 maint packet heythere
1807 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1808 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1811 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1812 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1813 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1815 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1817 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1818 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1819 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1821 * mask-address variable for Mips
1823 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1824 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1825 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1827 * Higher serial baud rates
1829 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1830 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1831 to achieve all of these rates.)
1835 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1836 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1839 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1841 * New native configurations
1843 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1844 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1845 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1846 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1847 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1848 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1849 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1853 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1854 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1855 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1856 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1857 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1858 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1859 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1860 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1861 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1862 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1863 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1865 * New debugging protocols
1867 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1868 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1869 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1870 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1871 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1872 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1876 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1877 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1882 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1883 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1885 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1887 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1888 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1889 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1891 * Live range splitting
1893 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1894 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1895 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1899 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1900 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1904 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1905 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1906 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1911 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1916 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1917 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1918 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1919 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1920 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1921 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1925 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1926 the symbol at the specified address.
1930 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1931 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1932 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1933 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1934 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1938 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1939 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1940 of most MIPS variants.
1944 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1945 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1946 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1950 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1951 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1952 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1953 the possible architectures.
1955 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1957 * New native configurations
1959 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1960 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1961 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1962 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1963 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1964 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1968 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1969 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1970 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1971 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1972 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1974 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1978 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1979 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1980 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1981 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1982 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1986 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1988 * Windows 95/NT native
1990 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1991 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1992 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1993 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1994 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1996 * dont-repeat command
1998 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1999 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2000 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2001 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2003 * Send break instead of ^C
2005 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2006 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2007 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2009 * Remote protocol timeout
2011 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2012 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2013 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2015 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2017 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2018 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2019 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2020 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2021 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2023 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2024 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2025 automatically on hpux10.
2027 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2029 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2031 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2033 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2034 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2035 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2036 every character. The default value is 1050.
2038 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2040 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2041 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2042 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2043 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2044 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2045 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2047 * Speedups for remote debugging
2049 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2050 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2051 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2053 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2055 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2056 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2058 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2060 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2062 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2063 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2065 * Remote targets use caching
2067 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2068 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2069 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2070 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2071 off' turns the the data cache off.
2073 * Remote targets may have threads
2075 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2076 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2077 gdb/remote.c for details.
2081 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2082 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2083 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2084 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2085 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2086 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2087 sequence is something like
2089 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2091 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2095 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2096 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2097 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2098 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2099 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2100 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2101 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2102 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2106 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2107 but does simplify configuration and building.
2111 GDB now supports hpux10.
2113 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2115 * New native configurations
2117 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2118 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2119 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2120 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2124 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2125 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2126 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2127 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2130 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2132 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2133 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2134 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2135 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2136 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2138 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2140 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2141 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2144 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2146 To execute the command use:
2149 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2150 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2151 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2153 * New `if' and `while' commands
2155 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2156 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2157 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2158 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2159 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2160 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2161 if the expression is zero.
2163 * Fortran source language mode
2165 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2166 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2167 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2168 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2171 * Better HPUX support
2173 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2174 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2175 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2176 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2177 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2183 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2184 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2190 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2191 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2194 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2195 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2197 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2199 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2200 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2201 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2202 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2203 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2204 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2206 * New DOS host serial code
2208 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2209 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2212 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2214 * New "complete" command
2216 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2217 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2219 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2221 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2222 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2224 * Breakpoint hit counts
2226 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2227 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2228 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2229 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2230 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2233 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2235 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2236 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2237 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2239 * Shared library breakpoints
2241 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2242 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2244 * Hardware watchpoints
2246 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2247 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2249 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2253 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2254 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2256 * Improved Irix 5 support
2258 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2260 * Improved HPPA support
2262 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2264 * New native configurations
2266 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2267 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2268 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2269 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2273 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2274 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2277 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2279 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2280 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2284 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2285 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2287 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2289 * Irix 5 is now supported
2293 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2294 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2295 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2296 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2297 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2300 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2302 * User visible changes:
2306 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2307 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2308 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2309 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2310 debugging info for the mips target).
2312 * DEC Alpha native support
2314 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2315 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2316 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2317 Alpha-specific notes.
2319 * Preliminary thread implementation
2321 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2323 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2325 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2326 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2329 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2331 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2332 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2333 call methods, ...etc.
2335 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2337 * User visible changes:
2339 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2340 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2341 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2342 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2344 Filename completion now works.
2346 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2347 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2348 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2350 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2351 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2352 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2353 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2354 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2358 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2359 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2362 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2366 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2367 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2368 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2372 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2373 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2374 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2375 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2376 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2380 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2381 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2382 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2384 * New targets supported
2386 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2387 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2388 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2389 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2390 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2392 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2393 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2394 GO32 memory extender.
2396 * New remote protocols
2398 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2400 * New source languages supported
2402 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2403 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2404 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2407 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2409 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2411 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2412 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2413 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2414 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2415 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2416 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2418 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2420 * Faster and better demangling
2422 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2423 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2424 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2425 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2426 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2427 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2430 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2431 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2432 compiler does not actually implement.
2434 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2436 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2437 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2438 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2439 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2440 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2441 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2444 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2445 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2447 * Improved configure script
2449 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2450 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2451 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2452 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2454 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2455 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2456 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2457 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2458 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2459 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2461 * Documentation improvements
2463 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2464 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2465 before submitting changes.
2467 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2468 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2469 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2470 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2471 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2473 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2474 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2475 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2476 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2477 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2478 around this problem.
2482 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2483 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2484 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2487 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2488 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2490 * New native hosts supported
2492 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2493 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2495 * New targets supported
2497 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2499 * New file formats supported
2501 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2502 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2506 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2508 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2509 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2511 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2512 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2513 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2515 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2516 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2518 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2519 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2520 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2523 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2524 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2525 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2526 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2527 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2529 * Internal improvements
2531 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2532 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2534 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2535 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2536 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2537 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2538 shared code that handles any of them.
2540 * New command line options
2542 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2546 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2547 General Public License.
2549 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2551 * Host/native/target split
2553 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2554 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2555 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2556 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2557 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2559 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2560 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2561 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2562 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2563 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2564 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2565 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2567 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2568 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2569 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2571 * New hosts supported
2573 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2574 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2575 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2577 * New targets supported
2579 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2580 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2582 * New native hosts supported
2584 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2585 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2586 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2588 * New file formats supported
2590 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2591 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2592 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2596 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2597 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2598 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2600 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2602 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2603 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2604 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2605 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2609 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2610 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2611 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2613 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2617 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2618 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2621 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2622 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2624 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2625 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2626 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2627 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2628 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2629 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2631 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2632 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2633 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2634 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2638 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2639 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2640 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2641 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2642 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2644 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2645 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2646 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2647 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2651 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2652 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2653 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2654 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2655 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2656 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2657 each instruction being stepped through.
2659 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2660 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2662 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2663 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2664 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2665 processor with a serial port.
2669 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2670 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2671 supported, and what files each one uses.
2675 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2676 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2677 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2678 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2680 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2681 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2682 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2683 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2687 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2688 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2689 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2690 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2691 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2692 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2694 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2697 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2699 * Better support for C++ function names
2701 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2702 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2703 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2704 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2705 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2707 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2708 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2709 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2710 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2711 for the list of formats.
2713 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2715 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2716 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2717 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2718 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2719 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2720 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2723 * New 'maintenance' command
2725 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2726 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2727 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2729 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2730 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2731 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2732 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2733 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2734 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2736 The following commands are new:
2738 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2739 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2740 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2742 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2744 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2745 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2746 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2747 read after argv processing.
2749 * New hosts supported
2751 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2753 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2755 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2756 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2757 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2758 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2759 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2762 * New targets supported
2764 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2766 * More smarts about finding #include files
2768 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2769 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2770 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2771 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2772 the one that contains your sources.
2774 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2775 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2776 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2778 * Interesting infernals change
2780 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2781 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2782 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2783 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2785 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2787 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2788 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2789 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2791 See the ChangeLog for details.
2793 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2795 * New machines supported (host and target)
2797 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2799 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2801 * New malloc package
2803 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2804 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2805 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2806 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2807 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2808 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2812 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2813 'help info proc' for details.
2815 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2817 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2818 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2821 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2823 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2824 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2825 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2826 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2827 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2828 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2830 * Cross byte order fixes
2832 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2833 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2835 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2837 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2838 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2839 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2840 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2841 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2842 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2843 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2844 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2845 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2846 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2848 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2849 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2850 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2851 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2853 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2854 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2855 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2858 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2860 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2861 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2862 shared across multiple host platforms.
2864 * longjmp() handling
2866 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2867 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2868 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2869 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2873 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2874 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2879 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2880 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2881 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2883 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2885 * New machines supported (host and target)
2887 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2889 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2890 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2892 * New machines supported (target)
2894 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2898 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2899 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2900 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2902 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2903 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2904 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2905 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2906 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2909 * New features for SVR4
2911 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2912 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2913 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2915 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2916 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2917 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2919 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2920 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2922 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2924 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2925 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2926 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2927 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2928 same code linked statically.
2932 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2933 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2934 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2935 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2936 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2937 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2941 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2942 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2943 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2946 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2948 * New machines supported (host and target)
2950 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2951 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2952 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2954 * Almost SCO Unix support
2956 We had hoped to support:
2957 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2958 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2959 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2960 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2962 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2964 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2965 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2966 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2967 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2972 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2973 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2974 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2978 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2979 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2980 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2982 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2984 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2985 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2986 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2988 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2989 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2990 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2991 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2994 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2995 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2996 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2997 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3000 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3001 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3004 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3005 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3006 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3009 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3011 * Improved configuration
3013 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3014 Porting BFD is simpler.
3018 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3019 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3020 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3021 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3025 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3027 * New host supported (not target)
3029 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3032 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3034 * Multiple source language support
3036 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3037 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3038 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3039 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3040 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3041 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3045 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3046 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3047 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3048 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3050 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3051 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3052 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3054 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3055 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3059 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3060 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3061 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3062 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3065 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3067 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3068 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3069 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3070 examining core files.
3074 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3077 * New machines supported (host and target)
3079 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3080 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3081 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3083 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3085 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3087 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3089 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3090 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3091 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3093 * New remote interfaces
3099 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3103 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3105 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3106 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3107 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3108 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3109 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3110 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3111 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3112 stub on the target system.
3114 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3116 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3117 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3118 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3120 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3121 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3124 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3126 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3127 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3129 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3130 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3131 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3133 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3134 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3135 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3136 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3138 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3139 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3140 it is already running. Default is ON.
3142 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3143 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3144 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3145 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3148 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3149 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3150 or the value of the environment variable
3153 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3154 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3157 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3158 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3159 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3161 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3162 history expansion will be performed on
3163 command line input. The default is OFF.
3165 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3166 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3167 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3169 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3170 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3171 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3174 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3175 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3176 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3179 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3180 ``set width'' instead.
3182 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3183 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3184 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3185 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3187 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3190 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3193 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3196 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3199 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3201 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3202 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3203 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3207 * Support for Shared Libraries
3209 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3210 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3211 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3212 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3213 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3214 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3215 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3216 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3218 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3219 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3220 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3222 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3227 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3228 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3229 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3230 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3231 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3232 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3234 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3236 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3238 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3239 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3240 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3243 * C++ multiple inheritance
3245 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3248 * C++ exception handling
3250 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3251 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3252 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3255 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3256 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3257 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3259 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3260 current stack frame.
3263 * Minor command changes
3265 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3266 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3267 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3269 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3270 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3271 frames without printing.
3273 * New directory command
3275 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3276 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3277 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3278 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3279 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3281 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3283 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3286 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3287 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3288 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3289 where the program that you are debugging will run.
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